Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: apparent increase in loudness From: Brian Gygi <bgygi(at)EBIRE.ORG> Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 12:50:54 -0800I sent a posting to auditory list last year about this: "In the New York Times magazine of March 23, 2003, there was a piece on Woody Norris who works with highly directed sounds. Apparently, the military has interest in these as weapons. It seems that the sound of a baby crying played backwards mixed with some pure tones is actually debilitating. The author of the piece tries and it out and finds it to be the case." I have been doing some studies with time-reversed environmental sounds, one of which is a baby crying, and none of my subjects has come screaming out of the booth yet (in fact, it deson't that much different from the sound played forward). I have tried mixing the baby-crying-backwards-sound with various pure tones (only on myself) and it sounded like a baby crying mixed with a pure tone, not Bach, but hardly debilitating. Brian Gygi At 11:23 AM 1/30/2004 -0800, Ross Alexander Hendler wrote: >Some studies have shown that the sound of a baby crying can >actually be quite debilitating. I remember reading about these >studies performed by the American Technology Corporation >which incorporated the sound of a baby crying played >backwards and mixed with some pure tones. > >I tried to find out more about what tones were used but got >the reply that "Unfortunately, the recording in question is the >the property of U.S. government and it is not a good idea for >ATC to disclose their full contents." > >Ross A. Hendler